Pittsburgh's new artificially intelligent stoplights could mean no more pointless idling

Thanks to a new pilot program from the tech startup Rapid Flow Technologies, Steel
City now boasts 50 intersections whose stoplights are running
artificial intelligence software known as Surtrac that reduces wait times on
empty or lightly-traveled roads.

Since Surtrac was first introduced in 2012, the Rapid Flow team
estimates the AI stoplights have cut emissions by 21%, travel
times by 25%, and idling times by 40%.

The magic of Surtrac is that it bundles each stoplight into an
intelligent network "that moves all the vehicles it knows
about through the intersection in the most efficient way
possible," Rapid Flow CEO Steve Smith said at the recent White
House Frontiers Conference,
according to IEEE Spectrum.

Most current traffic lights operate on simple timers or
sensors built into the roads, which aren't able to adjust based
on traffic patterns. The result: People spend roughly 40% of
their driving time at a dead stop, Smith said at the
conference.

Surtrac relies on a system of cameras and radar sensors
that detect traffic patterns in particular areas. When one area
starts to see more traffic — during rush hour, for example — the
other stoplights use a proprietary set of algorithms to adjust
their timing accordingly.

The result is a smarter city that operates more like a
living, breathing organism than just a static patch of
roads.

Pittsburgh has recently been a popular site for
urban-planning innovation. In August,
the city played host to Uber's first rollout of self-driving
cars. Uber selected Pittsburgh because of its odd assortment of
narrow, one-way streets mixed with steep hills and a staggering
446 bridges, all of which make it an ideal setting for testing
the limits of AI.

In Pittsburgh, Surtrac allows the lights to talk to one
another independently, based only on the feedback from the
sensors and cameras. They essentially think for
themselves.

Rapid Flow has plans to expand city-wide eventually, and
then into people's cars. Ultimately, Smith wants to create a
symbiosis between commuters and traffic lights so people can
spend even less time in transit and less time spewing harmful
emissions into the atmosphere.